House Bill 2467, requiring high-schoolers to take a loyalty oath to the U.S. Constitution before graduating: dead.

House Bill 2434, making it illegal for an illegal immigrant to use any public resource, such as driving on a public road: dead.

These bills and hundreds of others failed to make the cut.

Friday was the deadline for legislation to have a hearing and committee vote. Without both, a bill is effectively killed for the session.

That means this year, Arizona likely won’t see guns allowed on college campuses, a ban on texting while driving, or the repeal of controversial immigration law Senate Bill 1070.

All were among the 1,145 bills lawmakers introduced this session. Now at the midway point of a session that political insiders on both sides of the aisle describe as unusually civil, only about 500 are still moving forward.

There are no limits to how many bills lawmakers can introduce, or “drop,” and no restrictions on what bills they choose to introduce. The weeding-out process comes when the Republican leadership chooses which bills are assigned to committee, get the required public hearings and then are scheduled for a vote of the full chamber.

“Every year there are bills that make the news once they are dropped, and then the legislative process works its way out through committee meetings and stakeholder meetings,” said Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek.

This session, the leadership seems to be weeding out the most controversial bills — from members of both sides of the aisle.

“We are at the point in the session where the viable bills are the ones still continuing through the process,” Carter said. “The bills that are unconstitutional or don’t make sense haven’t progressed.

“It doesn’t mean they are dead. But it’s hard to revive an issue that has not been ... voted on.”

The Senate president and House speaker can grant exceptions to the deadline and do so in a handful of cases. For example, several bills that technically should be dead will be given hearings next week in the Appropriations committees. Senate Appropriations will hear bills to allow certain teachers in some schools to carry guns at school and to give the Legislature more input into state highway- construction projects. House Appropriations will hear a bill to create a new vehicle- registration fee to help fund state parks and one to allocate additional money for mental health.

Both Republican and Democrat lawmakers say they are relatively pleased with the bills that have been allowed to move forward.

“We need to be focusing our work on the priorities of the state of Arizona, and it feels like we’re doing that so far this session,” Carter said. “We are seeing the big priority items — jobs, the economy, improving education, health care, public safety.”

Even some lawmakers whose bills have failed to move forward admit it may be for good reason. Freshman Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, introduced nine bills. The ones that are not moving forward include a bill to expand online education programs.

“There were some big things that I wanted to start moving that didn’t get heard,” he said. “But they maybe need more study time.”

Worsley, who defeated former Sen. Russell Pearce on a platform that included supporting comprehensive immigration reform, said he was glad to see that anti-immigration bills failed to gain traction.

“We agreed that let’s let Washington work on immigration,” he said. “That’s the right place.”

About 20 of the bills moving forward are Democrat-sponsored. Typically, only a handful of bills from the minority caucus become law.

Senate Minority Leader Leah Landrum Taylor, who has served in the Legislature since 1999, said she is glad to see more Democratic bills than usual getting hearings. She said she would have liked to see more support for bills proposing changes to education curriculum and funding, but she still feels like the session has focused on policy instead of divisive philosophical issues.

“It’s been an atmosphere of mutual respect,” she said. “More amicable, statesmanlike.”

She credits the last election, in which President Obama won re-election and Arizona Democrats won more seats in both Congress and the state Legislature.

“We have to work together,” she said. “The public showed us in the last vote that they are just so sick of the bickering.”

Sen. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, said lawmakers and lobbyists alike have been commenting on what a legislatively uneventful year this has been so far.

The battles seen in prior years over things like immigration, abortion, contraception, unions and even guns haven’t happened. There were only a handful bills on these topics introduced, and few of those have progressed. With no hearings, there haven’t been many rallies or large protests at the Capitol as have been seen in prior years.

“People don’t seem like they want to save the world this year,” Shooter said. “Nobody has been fighting or getting angry.”

He blames the last election.

“We’ve got four more years of Obama, and I think the whole country has a general malaise,” he said. “I don’t see any optimism. They’re just trying to hang on.”

The two most controversial issues of the session are still to come: the budget and the debate over whether to expand Medicaid. Republicans are working behind-the-scenes on both. It’s unclear when they may come forward for a public vote.

“Right now, we’re dealing with the easy stuff,” Landrum Taylor said. “The proof will be in the pudding with how we handle ourselves with the budget conversation.”

But Shooter said he doesn’t expect much of a fight even with those more controversial issues.

“Even health care, I think we can resolve it without the crazy stuff,” he said.

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